


Into the Fire

by Charmtion



Series: We are Wolves [5]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Dark Sansa, Dragons come to Winterfell, F/M, Harsh Words and Hard Kisses, Mild Sexual Content, Political Jon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-13 01:13:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18022010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charmtion/pseuds/Charmtion
Summary: “Tell me.” Ghost-lipped, she glides her mouth across his cheek; her breath sets a warm mist at his ear. “Did you bend the knee before orafteryou fell into her bed?”Wingbeat stirs the northern hills whilst wolves breathe wildfire in the shadows//Jon returns to Winterfell; Sansa greets him as a queen.





	Into the Fire

It rises like a dream: tower and turret and teetering chimney. Snow-dusted stone — a grey shadow that takes up all the horizon, half the world, near most the sky.

 _Home_.

Between the crooks of his ribs, wingbeat: his heart frantic as a fledgling sifting back to its nest. In truth, he has been flailing ever since he left it: nest, home, _her_. A speck of flame in a world of grey; she waits for him on the battlements.

Beside him, a queen of silver-and-violet trailing a night-black shadow that takes up all the hills behind them, half the world, near most the sky — men, armoured and helmed, moving thick as ants, setting a song of clanking plate and creaking footfall smoke-dark amongst the soft-falling snow.

Above, a mirror to his heart: wingbeat.

As one, they cut the icy air to ash-and-ember ribbons; turning, twisting as boys at play — as birds new-sprung from beneath their mother’s beak. A glimmer of scales — night-black and sea-green — stirring the sky as eddies to a lake.

“They do not seem to miss their brother.” Her voice ebbs to match the little bells in her braid: silver-peal, high and clear. “I wonder — will wolves prove fickle as dragons?”

Her words hang light-winged as the shadows overhead; turning, twisting as his heart between the crooks of his ribs. He gives a laugh — soft-footed as the snowflakes catching at his lashes — to sate her, but his gaze tarries elsewhere.

A speck of flame in a world of grey; he sees her face now high up on the battlements: the profile of a queen, of a shield-maiden, of a warrior of old — ice-eyed, she flares at him, then fades from sight.

Layer upon layer of furs and wool and leathers, yet he feels ice-prickles flood as water across his skin at _that_ look: a pang of desire, a knot of longing, a flicker of fury-fear.

Dragons overhead, a violet-eyed queen at his side, an army at his back — yet only _now_ does he feel like he is walking into the fire; there, moon-pale at its white-hot heart, _her_ : ice-eyed, flame-haired, a wolf waiting to take him between her teeth.

 

*

 

 _A lady at three_ , her mother used to say to her, slender fingers running her hair back from her brow: red as fire, rich as river-mud.

 _A pretty little talking bird_ , a hound once called her, ale-soaked breath and battle-weary eyes as he pricked her throat with a knife.

 _A lost little sister_ , they whispered of her: men-at-arms amongst the trees, hunters in the wood seeking to turn her back to the lions for a pot of gold-glinting coins.

Did they _ever_ know her?

Russet-red hatchling in a lion’s soft-cupped paw. Dark-dyed fledgling in a mockingbird’s nest. Flame-feathered phoenix blazing spread-winged through a snow-silk sky. _That_ is who she is here, now: not a lady, a little bird, a lost sister — a _survivor_.

Do they _really_ expect her to go as a doe before a dragon?

She smiles as she waits: serene, ice-carved, eyes an eagle-gliding glare above high cheekbones. Wingbeat overhead, a streak of wildfire — jade, ebony, crimson — setting the soft-falling snow aglow. Her smile does not falter; frozen as her eyes on the gateway, it grows a little as they slip as shadows into the courtyard: a queen of silver-and-violet, a night-black ant-swarm of mail and plate, and —

A flash of her teeth — wolf-sharp — as _he_ comes into view.

Wordless, what passes between them; but she sees him shiver.

 

*

 

He expects a fight — barbed words cutting courtesy to the quick, bristled looks shot between sisters — to spark when frost meets fire. Around him, northmen expect much the same; they thread uneasy glances at one another, shift-footed, squint-eyed as wingbeat sounds as thunder far off over the hills.

They do not look to him — as if they _know_ what he has done — with the strength of blood and fire at his back, by his elbow, on wings of storm over his head.

No, they look to _her_.

Like glass in the snow-shot sunlight: smooth-carved face, snow-dusted shoulders, clean-cut chin tilted skyward as she steps across the cobblestones. Glass, for true — half a hundred jewel-bright shades of it: dragonglass gown, moonstone skin, ruby hair, sapphire eyes. Blue flames in a face of frost, they _burn_ him.

“You went south.” Firelit frost, her voice burns as her eyes. “You came back.”

 _To you_ , he wants to say — but they are not alone. “I came back… will you share your hearth and hall?”

“Winterfell is yours, Your Grace — as is its hearth and hall.” Ice-sharp, her gaze flicks from him to the queen at his elbow and back again. “I was merely its keeper.” An ice-crack across a lake, she smiles at the queen. “Mother of Dragons… your children seem happy in northern skies as wolves in the snow.”

Dragons overhead, a violet-eyed queen at his side, an army at his back — yet only _now_ does he feel like he is looking into the fire; there, moon-pale at its white-hot heart, _her_ : ice-eyed, flame-haired, a wolf pinning his throat beneath her bare-flexed claws.

A crevasse splitting rock and mountain, she _smiles_ at him.

 

*

 

Brotherly grip on her elbow, he leads her from the hall once the news has broken as bread beneath the press of thumbs: twisting, turning, _tearing_. Outside — away from ice-eyed northmen throwing looks as dagger-points to his back — he draws her beneath the shelter of an archway, whispers urgent words of politics, power, promises —

“You left a king.”

“I return _alive_ — and unburnt.”

“You bent the knee.”

“I did what I had to do.”

“You did not write.”

“I could not — ”

“Quiet.” A flash of thunder in her eyes: white-forked. “For once – _quiet_.”

Around them, the strains of feasting — woodsmoke, woodwind-whistle, wine-dark laughter — stain the snow shades of sunset; the torches hiss and flicker as dragon’s breath in the ice-still night.

Their breath spins together: white-shot mist on ink-dark air.

He trails his thumb the line of her jaw, sweeps the seashell-silk of her lower lip. Shallow breath sticks in her throat as he touches his brow to hers, cups her head and tilts it back. His beard brushes her cheek, his lips skim — feather-light — the corner of her mouth.

“Tell me.” Ghost-lipped, she glides her mouth across his cheek; her breath sets a warm mist at his ear. “Did you bend the knee before or _after_ you fell into her bed?”

Her nails leave marks on his cheek; a searing path along his skin, her fingers thread from his beard to his hair, tangling hard at strands ink-dark as the night. He grunts — tilt-necked — soft white throat open to her teeth.

Wordless, the look that passes between them; but she feels him shiver beneath the wraith-light whisper of her breath to his flesh.

“King in the North.” Firelit frost, her tongue darts out to mark his throat; she pinches his fingers away from her thighs. “Tell me, were you happy in your southron queen’s bed as you are in your sister’s — or _happier_?”

He moves: a lightning-bolt wrenching at sky-seams, a brass-booted footstep shattering sea-ice, a wolf snapping back at the claws that pin it. “She is not my queen — _you_ are.”

“Words are wind, Jon Snow.”

Fingertips as arrowheads the circle of her neck; he presses almost gently, thumbprint pushing the underside of her chin till she lifts her face to his. They fit together: the line of brow and nose and lip and chin a song of dark mountains brushed with snow. Link-locked lips, she sucks in her breath as he kisses her —  _hard_.

“Aye, _white_ winds.” His voice is an echo in the cave of her mouth. “And when they blow, the lone wolf dies — but the pack survives.” Dark smoke, the way his eyes drink at hers; kiss-bruised, her lips part beneath his thumb. “My words mean the pack _will_ survive. Trust me, Sansa… just trust me.”

 _Father’s_ words; they sound a different fruit when rolled from the tongue that laps as a wolf to a stream at her jaw — darker, harder, _wilder_. They fall — round and rich with promise — as hot drops of orange-oil on her lips, melting the snowflakes settled as a crown of ash the red-rich fire of her hair. His fingers comb the flames of it, twisting ruby strands as rings around his thumbs.

She curls a fist at the nape of his neck; moonstone fingers ink-streaked with obsidian threads as she pulls — _hard_.

“I trust you, Jon — as a sister trusts a brother.” Slowly, she draws close to him; frost-feathered breath on his lips, a snarl-smile as he groans. “As a wolf trusts a wolf.” Heavy honey, she sinks her mouth onto his; sharp white teeth as she nips at his lip. “I trust you — even if I do not trust the dragons that circle our hills and hearth.”

A flicker of torchlight slips across his face, enough to show the white of his teeth lifting in a snarl-smile to match her own. Hooded eyes — smoke-dark storm clouds over distant mountains — fixed on hers as he lowers himself to rest on his knees before her, fingers running whisper-shod the silk of her thighs beneath her skirts.

“Everything I have done — everything I will do — is for _this_ , Sansa… for hearth, home and heart tree.” Beard-brush the swell of her skin; a flower, she opens for him, for his red-warm mouth just _there_ stirring frost to flame. “For _you_.”

 

*

 

Hidden marks, finger-smoothed hair, straightened collars when they take their seats again amongst the northmen, the southron court, the silver-and-violet queen.

But _there_ in the fleeting glint of fireflame, their secret shines honey-sweet the shadow of his smile: a promise rent in sound and scent for none but them to see.

 

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. _A lady at three_... lifted from _A Clash of Kings_ Chapter 55: Catelyn VII.  
> 2\. _A pretty little talking bird_... lifted from _A Game of Thrones_ Chapter 29: Sansa II.  
> 3\. _A lost little sister_... lifted from _A Feast for Crows_ Chapter 4: Brienne I.  
>  **NB** : my little take on Daenerys' arrival at Winterfell, gleaned from (beloved) book-canon characterisations and a few clips here and there I have caught of the show from its last season and upcoming teasers — hope it stays true-ish to timelines/episodes etc. As always, feedback makes my heart sing, so please feel free to leave it! 🐺❤️


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